We Are Shining
by Alice the Strange
Summary: Two erstwhile lovers are reunited one rainy afternoon in Los Angeles. It doesn't exactly go as planned.


A/N: Wow. Okay, so…this is probably the smuttiest thing I've ever written, even if it isn't actually smut. It's also the first Glee fanfic I've done for a while. I'm a little nervous about it, so do please drop me a note in the comments and let me know what you think. Merci! xx

* * *

_"And like a colorful bloom of temporary lights in the sky, you will shine." _―Chad Sugg

* * *

Shining, sparkling, glittering, glowing. Everything in Los Angeles is brighter than normal – as if the saturation has been increased, making the world glow in strange neon technicolour, flashing on and off. Everywhere Rachel looks, her eyes are assaulted with blaring signs and lights that reflect off the wet pavement, her ears with honking horns and thudding nightclub bass and arguments with language that makes her blush and tighten her lips. She's caught in a web of brightness, and it's dizzying her.

The brightest thing of all is standing on a street corner, breath steaming up the cold glass, eyes fixed on a tray of expensive-looking jewellery. Rachel knows who it is, even from the back. She knows not by sight, but by _instinct. _Feeling as if she's wading through water, she approaches him, and the closer she gets the more certain she gets, until she's standing right there beside him, staring into the shop window.

"That one's definitely your colour," she informs him, pointing a finger at a random cluster of jade-green beads.

Finn's head snaps round so fast she's surprised it doesn't fly off his neck. "Rachel!" he yelps – which doesn't sound particularly masculine, but a yelp is the only way to describe it – and a crescent-moon slice of grin breaks out across his face. He automatically goes to hug her, then stops short, as if he's come up against an invisible barrier.

Rachel tries not to mind. "You look great," she says, smiling as well.

"It's so amazing to see you! And, um – " He flushes slightly, glancing back towards the jewellery display, "just so you know, it's…not for me."

"Really, Finn, what a man does in his spare time is entirely up to him."

"No, Rachel, seriously – " He catches the glint in her eye and realises that she's teasing him. He laughs half-heartedly, shakes his head in incredulity. "I just can't believe you're here," he says. "You look so…different."

Not different, Finn. Just old. Older. "So, how come you're in Los Angeles?" she asks. "Are you staying here for work or something?"

"No, um, my girlfriend Lucy just moved in nearby. I promised I'd help her move the stuff into her new flat. She got stuck in traffic, though, so I figured I'd hang out here for a while, just until she arrives." The words shoot her down like bullets. Flat, bang. Girlfriend, bang bang. "I was gonna buy her a necklace or something as well, but everything here is way too expensive."

"That was sweet of you," she tells him. It was, too; she's not lying about that. She can't pretend that it makes her happy, to hear that, but it's a very _Finn _thing to do.

"What about you?" There's an iron bench nearby, and they sit down together. Fin wipes beads of water and cigarette ash away from its surface. Rachel crosses one leg over the other to hide the ladder in her tights.

"What do you mean, what about me?"

"What are you doing here? I mean, are you staying long?"

It's a simple enough question, but somehow her answer gets caught somewhere in between her mind and her tongue, and there's a brief pause – not long enough to be awkward, but present nonetheless. _As long as you want me to, _she thinks. The silence stretches.

"Not that long," she says at last. The words that she wants to say are buried deep inside her core, suffocating. Her throat fills with them, and she swallows hard to keep them down, masking her expression with a smile. "A week, maybe? I guess I'll see how the show goes. I mean, obviously, it's gonna go _well, _but it's more a question of _how_ well."

"That's the spirit," he says, slightly confused. "It's that good, huh?"

She gives him a look. "I'm in it," she explains, in a tone of voice that implies he should have known better than to ask.

He laughs, in a way that sounds less like an expression of mirth and more like a new way of breathing. "I probably should have known you were going to say that. Well, good luck. I hope the show goes _really _well, okay?"

"So do I," she says.

He worries at his lower lip for a moment, then snaps his gaze back to meet hers. "Listen, Rachel. I was wondering…if you're free tonight…maybe we could meet up for dinner? Just as friends," he adds, hastily. "I mean, we've got a lot to catch up on. Do you know any good restaurants round here?"

"You mean after the show? It finishes at a quarter to nine, so…"

"Lucy should be here by then," he says. "She won't mind if I'm out for a couple of hours."

Lucy? Oh, yes, his girlfriend. Rachel bites back the bitterness flooding through her, and forces lightness into her voice. "Okay, so, that's settled! I can't wait to tell you everything that's happened so far. How about the hotel restaurant? I'm pretty sure they allow non-guests to eat there."

"Sure. That sounds great." His voice is fast, too eager. "Hey, do you want me to walk you back to your hotel? Where are you staying?"

"Um…Four Seasons." The moment the words are out, she wishes she'd lied. Four Seasons? It sounds as though she's showing off, she's sure, and Finn reacts accordingly.

"Wow. Seriously?" Wide eyes, waiting for the punchline. Rachel feels the heat surface in her cheeks.

"The stage company's paying for it." She can't tell whether she intended that as an excuse. It kind of sounds like one anyway.

Finn sighs. "It must be amazing to do what you do."

She searches for the false note in that, but no; he seems genuine. In a moment of impulse, she tells him the truth. "It's not all that great, you know," she says, surprising herself. "Once you get past the glamour, it's just a lot of hotel rooms and a lot of airports." Hearing the words makes her feel strange. It's something that she's thought for a long time but hasn't dared to voice, and now she's done so it makes her feel…she'd say sad, but it's not that. It feels as though she's confessed a secret that she's held inside her for far too long. She turns her head away and stares across the street, counting the cars that swish past. She counts seven of them before Finn finally speaks again.

"So, I mean...I'm free for the next half an hour. If you wanted company."

"I have to be at my show in twenty minutes," she says flatly.

"I could walk you there," he offers.

"Thanks, but it's fine. I'll get a taxi." Another smile, just to show him that she didn't mean that nastily, that it's not a rejection; but then again, why should he care if it was?

"OK. Sure. Should I come over and meet you at your hotel after the show?"

"Meet me in the lobby at nine fifteen," Rachel says. "And don't be late."

With that, she steps out into the road, summons a taxi. As it swerves away from the kerb, she risks a look back out of the tinted windows. She waves without thinking, without looking, before she sees that his back is turned to her as he walks away down the street, framed by city lights.

* * *

Lights blind her, white and impossible, searing into her and leaving dull green streaks across her vision. The make-up on her face feels like it's caked on and melting all at once, and the faces of her audience blur into one smudged pinkish entity, like someone's thumb covering a camera shot. Her voice, when she sings, sounds higher than normal and slightly agonized, but no one seems to notice, and when she's done the applause rushes over her just like always, just like a thousand times before. The sound drowns her, swamps her, pulls her under in a current of adoration. Numbness and euphoria war for dominance. She will never get tired of this, she thinks; this utter ecstasy, this utter lack of feeling. But which is it? Surely it can't be both.

Rachel drinks in the sound, and tries to remember the last time she felt so alive and yet so dead.

In her dressing room, she brushes her hair back into its usual style, then sponges her skin clean and watches her own face reappear, Rachel Berry emerging from the mess of sweat and smudged greasepaint. The sky outside is dark, but the streets are not; they are shining, reflecting the shop windows and the faces of the commuters rushing past.

The taxi drops her off at Four Seasons, and Rachel spins through the revolving door and into the lobby. For a moment her eyes flash around and she sees nothing and there's a knot of something growing in her chest that might be panic and might be disappointment. Then she sees him, smiling sheepishly from behind a potted plant, and something within her reawakens, ignites.

* * *

Ignites the bedside lamp in a flail, fingers scrabbling to turn it on. She wishes it had a dimmer switch. The glow that permeates the room is too harsh. She feels as if she is on stage all over again, sweat and grease and blinding and how did you spell _Columbia _again, Mr. Winger?

Except in the theatre it's never like this. There's usually a heartfelt love song somewhere in there, and a few witty lines that might make the audience laugh a bit because it's all just sweet and innocent and romantic and they can relate to it all, and then the lights fade out on the heroine's kiss. On stage there's never the clash of teeth and fingers slipping quick and clumsy, fumbling to undo straps. The untidiness of it, the brutal bestiality, shocks her. It's raw and animalistic and somehow, somehow she wants it never to stop.

The hum of the air conditioning thrums softly, turned up too high, and Finn's hands go up under her shirt, searching. The part of her that's still thinking rationally wonders how they got from a polite, catching-up dinner in an expensive restaurant to this. She got lost somewhere along the way and now she's wandering in a dark forest, miles off track, searching for a clearing. Everything is hot and too fast and confusing, a mess of uncanny sensation. Finn's hands are hot and the room is cold and her skin is prickling feverishly between the two extremes.

What does this look like from the perspective of an outsider? Rachel imagines Lucy at the bedroom window, staring in horror at her oh-so-faithful boyfriend, and resentment mingles with a kind of crippling guilt. It's shaming and awful but she wants Finn to be_ hers,_ hers alone and no one else's, and why is that so difficult to understand?

Look in then, and see them, and oh! Aren't they a sight? On the bed there, on top of rather than under the covers because the cleaner tucked the sheets in too tightly. Half sprawled across it because this is what youth does. It doesn't lie down neatly and properly, with flannel nightgowns and folded hands. It scorns nice comfy lightweight quilts and soft, discreet lighting in favour of naked flesh and sweat cooling on it slowly. It leaves the light on because it wants to see everything.

* * *

Everything is cold. The parts of her that aren't covered by the bed sheet are cold, goosepimpling. They must have climbed under the covers at some point, but she doesn't remember it happening. The air is cold; she tastes it on her tongue, the clinical chill of a room that's never been inhabited long enough to get that warm, lived-in sort of smell. She turns her head and sees that the other pillow is empty. For a moment she can't remember whether that's right or not. Then it all floods back and she scrambles inelegantly to her feet, pulling on the bathrobe that hangs on the back of the door. It swamps her, dragging on the ground as she goes out into the hallway.

In the bathroom, water is rushing. When he hears her enter, Finn lifts his head from the sink and shakes droplets from his hair like a wet dog before turning to face her. "Lights around the mirror. You've really gone up in the world, haven't you?" he says, lightly.

"It's more of a personal emblem," she says. "Do you mind? I kind of need to use the bathroom."

"Right. Sure." He steps out of the way and backs into the hallway, closing the door behind him. Rachel stares at herself in the mirror. The soft glow of the bulbs illuminates her nose and cheekbones flatteringly, but exaggerates the darkness under her eyes. She wonders if she's ill, then realises it's just eye makeup that's slithered south.

She steps into the shower and turns on the water, full blast.

Just under an hour later, Finn is in the hallway, struggling with his coat. The buttons are done up wrong, one side of the collar higher than the other. She doesn't bother pointing it out. Instead, she puts a hand on his shoulder and he spins round, staring at her like a spooked rabbit. "You're leaving already?"

Finn nods. "I should really go." He doesn't meet her eyes.

"Yeah. That's probably a good idea." The words come out harsher than she meant, and he flinches. "Your girlfriend will be wondering where you are."

Finn hesitates for a moment, looking torn. Then he leans in and places a chaste kiss on the corner of her mouth. His lips are dry, like crackers, and he tastes faintly of salt, of unfamiliar toothpaste, of months and years of doing other things and being another person. She's almost glad when he pulls back again.

"See you around," he says.

The door closes behind him with a muted thud. Rachel stands in the tiny hallway, feeling – for once – nothing much at all, then walks back into the main room, staring around. The room looks back at her, emptily.

"I hate you," she says out loud. She no longer knows whether she's lying.

* * *

Lying in bed until midday because that's what stars do, and there's red lipstick smeared into the pillow like a promise, the sheets tangled and sticky, giving, warm. She twists her limbs in them, yawns her hot sleep-flavoured breath into the mattress.

Her thoughts feel jumbled. Even though she's been drifting in and out of a shallow doze for the best part of ten hours, she feels as if she's sleepwalking. So okay, she was tired then and she's tired now, and in this state it's easy enough to believe that it never actually happened. It's becoming harder than ever to remember things. What transpired and what didn't, who she is and who she isn't.

Rachel Berry, the Other Woman. The cheater. The whore. She tries out the labels for size and doesn't like the way they fit. This can't be real, surely? Maybe, she thinks with a sudden burst of hope, maybe she dreamed a lot of stuff. Stuff that she did to other people. Stuff that other people did to her.

Wouldn't that be great? she muses to herself, closing her eyes and curling on to her side. Wouldn't that be great if at least 90 per cent of it was just dreaming?

Behind the orange of her eyelids, the lights are bright, brighter than ever before. She kicks and steps her way across the stage and it feels like coming home. The people laugh, they are delighted to see her; they love her and she loves them. She loves them so much, her audience. She sings all the songs she knows for them, and as she drifts deeper into unconsciousness, only their faces remain, and they are shining.


End file.
